Matador Insurance Services

Life Insurance Consultant

couple hugging happilyA Traditional Fixed Annuity is a form of annuity contract in which the interest rate is set for each year. They may give an upfront premium bonus or interest rate improvement throughout the first year. The interest rate will be reset on an annual basis after the first year by the issuing insurance company. You are assured to receive at least the contractually promised minimum interest rate every year; you may earn more interest than the minimum, but only the minimum rate is guaranteed.

What Are Traditional Fixed Annuities?

Traditional fixed annuities, like other annuities, are given specific tax status. Annuity income tax is deferred, which means you don’t pay tax on the interest you earn until you remove it. You can take partial withdrawals, fully cash out and surrender your annuity, or annuitize your deferred annuity into a stream of income payments, depending on your needs. You determine when to collect annuity income and, as a result, when to pay taxes. One of the most important advantages of any annuity is the improved control over your taxable income.

How Do Traditional Fixed Annuities Work?

Single-year guarantee fixed annuities are another name for traditional fixed annuities. They’re sometimes referred to as “trust me” annuities because the insurance company effectively says, “give us your money and trust us to be fair with you beyond the first year.” This is acceptable if the issuing insurance firm has demonstrated its trustworthiness over time.

Requesting to examine a renewal rate history table is one approach to verify if an insurance business has been fair with its policyholders in the past. This table can show you whether the corporation has a history of increasing, decreasing, or maintaining the base interest rate on previously issued contracts over time. However, not all businesses provide this information.

Traditional fixed annuities have an annually adjusted base interest rate, which means that if interest rates rise, so will the crediting interest rate on your contract; however, with a multi-year guarantee annuity, your interest rate is locked in and unchanged for an extended period of time, denying you the opportunity to benefit from higher interest rates if they occur.

couple going over traditional fixed annuity optionsIn a rising interest rate environment, the bulk of classic fixed annuity contracts do not receive improved crediting rates at roughly the rate that most contract owners had anticipated. Some annuity issuers do better than others and have a history of providing competitive renewal rates. Other issuers, on the other hand, may simply give a renewal rate that is barely higher than the contractually specified minimum.

One thing that keeps insurance companies honest with their renewal rates is the competitive annuity market. If the renewal rate on an existing traditional fixed annuity is too low in comparison to current interest rates on new annuity products, policyholders will surrender their contracts and transfer their funds to a new better yielding alternate annuity. Most insurance companies do not want this to happen, therefore they will try to provide a renewal rate that will allow them to keep the money and keep the company if at all feasible. Keep in mind that withdrawals made before the surrender period’s completion may be subject to fees.

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If you do your homework and choose a well-designed product from a reputable provider with a track record of crediting reasonable renewal interest rates, a traditional fixed annuity may be a good purchase for you. A multi-year guarantee annuity, on the other hand, may be a better option if you desire a fixed rate annuity with a little more certainty.

Please contact our helpful staff at Matador Insurance by reaching out to us online or requesting a consultation if you have any queries or would like to discuss your options further. Without any hype or sales pressure, one of our qualified annuity specialists would be pleased to patiently answer all of your questions.